Day: December 18, 2014

Here’s something interesting that I learned today: the remake of Hawaii Five-O is still on the air. I would have lost a bet about that one. It’s in its fifth season on CBS, which lets you know how often I watch CBS. I really thought this was a one season and done kind of show.

Why do I bring this up? Because in 2011 they released a soundtrack CD. The kind folk at Wikipedia tell me that the show drew some attention for the way that they integrated new music and unknown music from major artists into their soundtrack, rather than just a collection of hits or the collection of tones that don’t add up to songs that CBS has made a staple of their procedurals. Falling into the second category is “Don’t Ever Take Yourself Away” by Bob Dylan.

This is a song that was recorded during the sessions for Shot of Love in 1981, so it is an oldie by this time. This one has a bit of reggae feeling to it. I had previously heard it on a bootleg of material that collects material recorded between Saved and Shot of Love, but I didn’t think much of it at that time. I still don’t. This isn’t a buried masterpiece that they’ve unearthed here – it’s a little too repetitive to be interesting. It sounds like something that could be used well in a crime tv show though, and the title (which is endlessly repeated in the song) has some faux-cop show gravitas to it.

The Hawaii Five-O soundtrack, which I did not bother to listen to at all, features Jimmy Cliff and Ziggy Marley, which gives you some sense of where they’re going with this whole thing. They also have a Jake Shimabukuro ukulele song, which I bet is great.

With this one you can tell how minor it is by the fact that it has never even shown up on a Bootleg Series disc and by the fact that it isn’t listed as a Dylan song on Dylan’s own website. That has to hurt.